Monday (September 30): At least 113 people were killed in India’s northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar due to very heavy rains over the past three days, officials said today.
An official said that, “At least 93 people had died in most populous Uttar Pradesh since Friday after its eastern areas were lashed by intense monsoon showers.”
Police officer Santosh Verma said, “Rising water levels forced authorities to shift 900 inmates from a prison in eastern Ballia district”.
In another flood ravaged state Bihar the death toll from the latest bout of rain had reached 20 today, a state government official said.
“The rains have stopped but there is waterlogging in many areas,” Bihar’s Additional Secretary in the Disaster Relief Department Amod Kumar Sharan said.
In its bulletin today, India’s Meteorological Department (IMD) said the intensity of rainfall over Bihar was very likely to reduce. Showers in Uttar Pradesh are also expected to abate this week.
Weather department officials said this month that monsoon rains were likely to be above average for the first time in six years.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had spoken to P K Mishra, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, on September 21 urging him to take steps to check the water level in the Ganges here which had then risen to alarming levels.
